Western Railroad Discussion > UP Manifest at Ivanpah, Mojave National Preserve

I caught this UP manifest at Ivanpah. This location is about eight railroad miles south of Nipton.

At one time, there was a siding in operation at this location that served the gold mines (and cattle ranches?) in the mountains and desert nearby. At one time, a century or more ago, the California & Eastern ran diagonally across the picture, near where the house is. That line had long been abandoned even before the LA&SL was built.

This location looks to be double tracked, but only one of them is ribbon rail and seems to be in operation.

Picture 1 and 2: The manifest approaches. It was a quiet day and you could hear this train from several miles away.

Picture 3: Looks like three switchers were being hauled.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/12 17:38 by syscom3.

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Picture 4: The engines were in full power as they started the ascent up Cima Hill.

Pictures 5 and 6: One thing I like about the UP, is the numbers of, and types of cars that make up their manifests.

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Pictures 7 and 8: More freight cars making up the manifest.

Picture 9: The tail end passes by, and an opportunity to get the whole train in one picture.

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syscom3 Wrote:
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> I caught this UP manifest at Ivanpah...
>
> At one time, there was a siding in operation at
> this location that served the gold mines (and
> cattle ranches?) in the mountains and desert
> nearby...
>
> This location looks to be double tracked, but only
> one of them is ribbon rail and seems to be in
> operation...

Ivanpah is on a 1.00% westbound compensated grade, with 79-70 speed limit. No "Desert Wind" these days, so only UP's ZLADV might get close to these speeds. Ivanpah Siding is 9,835' long, per Altamont Press' "California Region Timetable". I could see why you might think it was double track.

mapboy

Both siding are in use from time to time, the 9000 foot is use almost daily for meets and the other is for MOW equipment now adays.

mapboy and vegasrails; thanks for the info!

Nice shots. How many cars was the train?

SantaFeRuss

What is that concrete base you're standing on? Is it a wash pad for a creek? That doesn't seem likely, given the RR track nearby. Looks new. What is it?

syscom3 Wrote:
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> Pictures 7 and 8: More freight cars making up the
> manifest.
>
> Picture 9: The tail end passes by, and an
> opportunity to get the whole train in one picture.


I see those three GATX cars often on the GEMCO-Guadalupe run.

There is a place just north of the Guadalupe yard. Where I see
more of these GATX Cars

Jerry Martin
Los Angeles, CA
Central Coast Railroad Festival

coach Wrote:
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> What is that concrete base you're standing on? Is
> it a wash pad for a creek? That doesn't seem
> likely, given the RR track nearby. Looks new.
> What is it?

Here's another view of it. I took this earlier in the year. They are loading platforms.

It looks like these were also used as loading ramps for the gold bearing quartz that was extracted from the mines. They would dump it there and when an ore car was set up, a scoop loader would dump it in. I don't have a picture of it, but it looks like a small load of quartz was dumped off years ago, never to be loaded.

The nearby mines did have a burst of activity in the 80's. But they're all now closed or inactive.

Don't get any ideas though about finding gold in those rocks still on the platform. The assayed value was very small and you would need to extract thousands of tons just to get a tiny quantity of gold.

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Thank you!

Given the Chinese demand for gold, you never know--this area might come alive again. They are even re-opening underground mines here in California in the old "49er" areas of the Sierras!